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Ft. Calhoun Project Word List Wiki

Three Tier Vocabulary Words (Beck & McKeown, 1985)

Tier I Words:Common, everyday words
- Most basic words
- Rarely require direct instruction
- Rarely have multiple meanings
- 8,000 word families in English are included in tier I words
- Examples: sight words, nouns, verbs, adjectives, early reading words, book, girl, sad, orange, run, dog, etc.
Tier 2 Words:High frequency words that strongly influence speaking and reading
- Most important words for direct instruction
- Good indicators of a student's progress in school
- 7,000 word families in English (or 700 per year) in tier 2
- Examples: masterpiece, fortunate, industrious, measure, benevolent
Tier 3 Words:Content-specific words that are used by specialists
- Low-frequency words
- Specific to domains that include subjects in school, hobbies, occupations, technology, weather, etc.
- Words are learned when a specific need arises such as learning amino acid during a chemistry lesson
- Examples: asphalt, crepe, isotope bucolic

PDF Document of Common Affixes & Roots Students Should Know K-12: prefix suffix root.pdf
ESU#3 Video on Tiered Words